ISLAMABAD, July 19: The ruling party in Azad Kashmir seem to be in for hard times so soon after winning a second successive term in an election that all its rivals say was rigged.

Opposition parties ranging from liberals to religious hardliners are planning a protest campaign against the results of the July 11 vote that gave the All Jammu and Kashmir Muslim Conference (AJKMC) 20 of the 41 seats of the state Legislative Assembly that were at stake after the party received open blessings from President Pervez Musharraf.

Election to eight seats reserved for women, ulema and mashaikh, technocrats and overseas Kashmiris by the already elected assembly members on Saturday is certain to give the party a clear majority in the 49-seat house and ensure the young party president Sardar Attique Ahmed Khan’s choice as the territory’s prime minister possibly on July 25.

The Azad Kashmir chapter of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) alliance has convened a conference of opposition parties in Islamabad for Thursday to consider the future protest campaign.

The situation is likely to be troublesome for the next government in Muzaffarabad while the territory is still struggling to recover from the shock and destruction of last October’s killer earthquake.

Hardly ever an election in Azad Kashmir was won by a party without a nod from the powers that be in Pakistan, and by tradition the losers have always reconciled to the situation after some grumbling and waited for a favourable government in Islamabad to see them through possibly the next time.

But protests are likely to be noisier this time and become part of a protest movement that opposition parties in Pakistan are planning to launch against President Musharraf’s government, opposition sources said.

Political pundits had expected a hung Legislative Assembly owing to a stark inability of the Azad Kashmir government to help the earthquake survivors — a job mainly done by Pakistani and foreign governmental and non-governmental agencies — and splits in the ruling party and its main rival, the state branch of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP).

But the AJKMC saved the situation for itself as its leaders had no compunction in seeking open support from President Musharraf and the leadership of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League, who were found too willing to oblige their Kashmiri loyalists.

A meeting that AJKMC’s ageing, yet effective, leader Sardar Mohammad Abdul Qayyum, and his son Attique Ahmed Khan had held with General Musharraf after PML president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain even handed AJKMC election tickets to some of the candidates for refugees’ seats in Pakistan served as a clear signal of Islamabad’s tilt.

Opposition parties complain of targeted rigging in several Azad Kashmir constituencies and almost total manipulation of the results of 12 seats reserved for Jammu and Kashmir refugees living in Pakistan, none of which was won by their candidates. The AJKMC rejects the charges as baseless.

The most shocking for the opposition was the capture of two refugee seats by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), which went into the foray on the basis of its relief work in the quake-hit areas of Azad Kashmir but polled Kashmiri votes in Karachi.

The 12 seats have been reserved in Azad Kashmir’s constitution for refugees from the disputed state’s Kashmir and Jammu regions in imitation of 25 seats kept vacant in the Indian- held Kashmir’s assembly for Azad Kashmir and Northern Areas but are seen to have become over the years a tool for manipulation.